A view of the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. File
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The Supreme Court on January 11 questioned the federal government on whether or not the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) had considered the reports of the court-appointed Technical Experts Committee (TEC) on the biosafety of transgenic mustard hybrid DMH-11 earlier than approving it for environmental launch.
Appearing earlier than a Bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Sanjay Karol, Attorney General R. Venkataramani, for the Centre, stated the GEAC was a statutory physique and the committee had examined related scientific information earlier than giving the go-ahead for the environmental launch.
“The reason why we are asking this is because the GEAC was not working in a vacuum… These are reports included a dissenting note by R.S. Paroda [agricultural scientist] submitted to the court on the issue. Will these reports be consigned to the record room?” Justice Nagarathna requested.
Transparent framework
Mr. Venkataramani submitted {that a} detailed evaluation of the TEC’s suggestions and steps taken by the Centre reveal that the regulatory regime had been additional strengthened since 2012 to make sure that a clear and science-based framework was in place for environmental threat evaluation of GM crops.
He stated the conditional approval granted for environmental launch of GM mustard was an instance of efficient implementation of the strengthened regulatory framework.
“Even for grant of conditional approval for environment release, a rigorous risk analysis approach was taken,” Mr. Venkataramani stated.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, for petitioner Aruna Rodrigues, had argued that the regulatory system below the GEAC was “horrendous” and riddled with battle of curiosity.
